Kanye Tour: Killed In the Northwest?

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It may have ended here, too. Or at least the Northwest (which, coincidentally, is the name of Kanye’s daughter, North West.)

Def Jam has just announced that the tour, which was set to continue in Vancouver, B.C. tonight, has been postponed indefinitely because of an accident that damaged some tour equipment.

“Yesterday, on the road to Vancouver, a truck carrying The Yeezus Tour’s custom-made video truss and 60-ft circular LED screen was in an accident that damaged the gear beyond repair,” said the statement from Def Jam.

The last show on the tour was in Los Angeles, meaning the equipment was likely traveling north on I-5. Assuming the elaborate stage takes a day to set up, it stands to reason that the tour equipment was within 12 hours of Vancouver the day before the show. Not accounting for traffic, that puts the equipment either in Washington, Oregon or B.C.

We’ve got some calls into top-level officials in both American states to see what they know. So far, spokespeople for both the Departments of Transportation in Oregon and Washington acknowledge they know who Kanye West is, though WSDOT qualified that with a “sort of.”

****UPDATE****

We got a tip this morning from someone involved with the tour that the trucking company hauling for the Yeezus tour is Artisan Transport out of Chicago. Our source was skeptical that the accident actually occurred. However, we put a call into Artisan, where the man who picked up -- who said he wasn’t at liberty to discuss details about the accident -- said it did happen. In California. Everyone is OK, the man said, just not the equipment.

When we asked our source whether we were off in our reasoning that the equipment should have been in Oregon or Washington to make it to B.C. in time they responded: “Realistically? You guys were right. But this tour hasn’t been realistic at all.”